On Monday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Introduces Bill Criminalizing ‘Conspiracy to Commit White Supremacy,’ Criticism of Non-White People

I need to understand this. If you criticize non-white people, you are committing ‘conspiracy to commit white supremacy,’ what about if you criticize white people? If one is a crime, and the other is not, isn’t that racist?

The article reports:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) introduced a House Bill criminalizing “conspiracy to commit white supremacy,” which includes criticism of non-white people which influences an individual to commit a hate crime. 

The legislation, H.R.61 “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023,” introduced last Monday by Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, seeks to “prevent and prosecute white supremacy inspired hate crime and conspiracy to commit white supremacy inspired hate crime.”

How do we know it’s a hate crime, and how do we know it’s influenced by white supremacy?

The article states:

The congressional bill, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, states that someone engages in a white supremacy inspired hate crime “when white supremacy ideology has motivated the planning, development, preparation, or perpetration of actions that constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.”

Accordingly, “conspiracy” to engage in white supremacy inspired hate crime entails the publishing of material “advancing white supremacy, white supremacist ideology, antagonism based on ‘replacement theory’, or hate speech that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-White person or group.”

It also calls for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “authority to conduct operations and activities pursuant” to what it deems “necessary and appropriate to interdict, mitigate, or prevent such action from culminating in violent activity.”

The bill would grant the department authority to “prosecute” persons engaged in such actions, with “records of white supremacy inspired hate crimes” maintained and annual reports provided.

I fear that we are setting up a system where people will be prosecuted for their opinions if their opinions don’t agree with whomever is in power at any given moment.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Congress.gov had posted no summary for the bill.